Txikon with a ladder on his back

At the moment Alex Txikon may feel on Mount Everest a bit like Edmund Hillary. Like the first ascender from New Zealand and his companions in 1953, the Basque must play an active part in finding a way through the dangerous Khumbu Icefall above Base Camp and in carrying material needed to secure the route. For example aluminium ladders to cross the deep crevasses in the Icefall. With a weight of about five kilograms, such a ladder is not too heavy but bloody bulky while climbing through the ice. Real back-breaking work, as the video shows which the 35-year-old sent today from Everest Base Camp:

As reported, Alex, along with his Spanish countryman Carlos Rubio, wants to scale Mount Everest in winter, for the first time since 1993 – without bottled oxygen. The two climbers and nine Sherpas first have to make their way through the dangerous Icefall. Txikon has estimated this work for up to four weeks.

Pretty exclusive experience

As in Hillary’s days, the Spanish expedition is currently the only one on the highest mountain on earth. What a contrast to spring, when year after year several hundred mountaineers from dozens of commercial expeditions turn the Base Camp into a small tent town!

Dangerous Khumbu Icefall

When the clients arrive there at an altitude of 5,300 meters in April, usually the so-called “Icefall Doctors” have already prepared and secured the way through the Icefall. This team of eight Sherpas also ensures that the route remains accessible throughout the climbing season until its end early June. The highly specialized Sherpas are selected and paid by the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC), an organization that originally only cared about the environmental protection in the National Park around Mount Everest. Since 2000, the SPCC has also been responsible for the route through the Khumbu Icefall on behalf of the Government of Nepal. In spring 2014, 16 Nepalese climbers were killed in an avalanche in the Icefall.

Even if it turns out that Alex Txikon is not able to reach the summit at 8,850 meters this winter – his experience of working as a non-Sherpa as Icefall Doctor is pretty exclusive.

Nepalese south side of Mount Everest

The Base Camps on both sides of Mount Everest have got empty eleven days after the devastating earthquake in Nepal. The climbers are on their way back. What about their permits, after they could not even make a single attempt to climb the highest mountain on earth? In Nepal, the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC) has requested the government to extend this year’s permits until 2016.

Risk too high

The SPCC is responsible for the Sherpa team setting up and maintaining the route through the Khumbu Icefall. The committee defended its decision not to send the “Icefall Doctors” back to the Base Camp. The earthquake on 25 April had triggered an avalanche from Pumori, which had killed 19 people at Base Camp. “The risk of setting a route in the current situation cannot be taken”, the SPCC’s statement says. In addition, the window of time until the start of the monsoon was now too narrow. And “many of the Icefall Doctors as well as the local support staff in the remaining expedition teams have suffered family deaths or injuries”, tells the SPCC.

Government is considering

The permits in Nepal are valid until end of May. Those responsible in Kathmandu are keeping a low profile on the matter. “The government will study whether it would be better to refund their money [11,000 US $ per expedition member] or extend the climbing permit validity”, said Tulsi Prasad Gautam, director general of the Department of Tourism. That would take at least two months. After the spring season 2014 on Everest had ended prematurely due to the avalanche disaster with 16 deaths, the authorities had extended the permits until 2019 – however, this decision had taken eleven months.

China reacts unbureaucratic

Tibetan north side of Everest

How to act quickly and without bureaucracy, the Chinese authorities have shown us – so far not just known for such behavior. After they had stopped all activities on the Tibetan mountains last week, they announced that the permits for Everest and the two other Tibetan eight-thousanders Cho Oyu and Shishapangma would remain valid for three years. Only an additional fee of 500 or 300 dollars will have to be paid. The expeditions also received a statement in which the China Tibet Mountaineering Association (CTMA) informed about the reasons to cancel the season: “The devastating earthquake changes the structure of ice and snow of the whole Himalaya, it becomes unstable and dangerous, avalanches occur at any time. More aftershocks continue, extreme weather and secondary disasters will follow up, it significantly increases the risk of montaineering.” Many Sherpa guides were eager to return to Nepal, the CTMA added and said that the decision to end the season also showed the “respect to the dead people” on the south side of Mount Everest.

New route through the Khumbu Icefall (on the right) and that of 2014 (left)

Apparently, the new route through the Khumbu Icefall is more than a little course correction. That is indicated by the images that the US guide Garrett Madison has published in his blog. Expedition members of his Madison Mountaineering team had flown over the icefall above Everest Base Camp by helicopter and had looked from the air where the so-called “Icefall Doctors” set up the route for this spring season. The images show that the route leads – seen from below – much further to the right side of the ice labyrinth than expected. Closer to Nuptse, further away from the West Shoulder of Everest, from where an ice avalanche had released on 18 April 2014 that had killed 16 Nepalis. “It appears that climbers will have to negotiate broken ice as before, and perhaps more vertical ladders”, Garrett wrote adding that there was at least one section that had four vertical ladders tied together to ascend up a very large ice cliff. This year, the famous US climber and filmmaker David Breashears, who scaled Everest five times, has advised the eight Sherpas to find a path through the icefall that is as safe as possible.

Environmental organization with a special task

Dangerous Khumbu Icefall

The “Icefall Doctors” do not only set the route but also ensure that it remains accessible throughout the climbing season. Without their work it would be impossible for most of the Everest aspirants to pass the Icefall. These highly specialized Sherpas are selected and paid by the Sagarmatha Pollution Control Committee (SPCC), an organization that originally only cared about the environmental protection in the National Park around Mount Everest. Since 2000, the SPCC on behalf of the Government of Nepal is also responsible for the route through the Khumbu Icefall. It collects US $ 600 per expedition member. The amount has become an important part of SPCC’s income.

Indispensable, endangered, underpaid

“Unfortunately all these funds are not used in paying the Icefall Doctors or on equipment for the Icefall”, New Zealand expedition operator Russell Brice said last year. Those Sherpas who take the greatest risks because they have to move in the glacier every day are paid only about $ 2,000 per season. For comparison: Climbing Sherpas can, including bonuses, earn $ 4,000 to 6,000 $, those who reach the summit repeatedly make up to $ 10,000. The “stars” among the Sherpas allegedly take back home even up to $ 25,000 after a successful season.

No fall in demand

The government in Kathmandu announced that it released Everest permits for 30 expeditions this spring. Thus again some 300 foreign climbers will attempt to climb the highest mountain on earth from the Nepalese south side. That makes already clear that the “Everest market” in Nepal has not collapsed, despite the avalanche disaster in April 2014 and the subsequent early end last year’s climbing season.